*The following features gifted products but the opinions are all my own*

Cameo is in Year 1. That means that things are moving far quicker than they were previously. It feels as though every other day he’s coming out of school with fresh knowledge that we wouldn’t have thought he was ready for.

• Monday: He blindsided me by asking what treason is
• Tuesday: He shocked me by telling the time on the drive home from school
• Wednesday: He told me the years that King Charles I reigned
• Thursday: He flexed his three-digit number skills
• Friday: He wrote a story and spelled the word ‘accidentally’ with perfect spelling

We’re on the move. Keep up.

As far as Maths goes, he’s comfortable. He knows what he’s doing and he’s ready to be challenged. Apparently the biggest focus for Year 1 Maths is number sentences. It’s going to form the foundation for much of their numerical learning for the foreseeable future, so it’s a must that they get into the swing of writing out complete sentences, such as 5+4=9 themselves (rather than just filling in the gaps).

My introduction to Magicube came with their Word Building set, so I knew exactly what to expect with the maths-based version. If you’re not familiar with Magicube, I’ll explain what you get in a set like this. In each box you get:

• A set of magnetic blocks
• A set of double-sided magnetic number and symbol cards

From there, you play around with it in any way you can imagine to write out full number sentences and test to see how their maths skills are coming along. The symbols included allow you to work on:

• Addition
• Subtraction
• Multiplication
• Division
• Greater than and smaller than

It means that it’s suitable for a wide range of mathematic abilities, working up from simple addition and greater than/smaller than, right the way through to more complex division. For that reason this is going to be an essential piece of kit for the next few years and will be a great way to supplement my boys’ school learning without feeling like we’re forcing them to do homework.

A huge benefit of this that because I’ve already got another Magicube set, I can use the additional cubes to expand things and make it even more fun for both of the boys to get involved with it.

Obviously this is all stuff that you could do with pen and paper, but the fact that it’s made with magnetic cubes means that it feels like actual play for the kids. As it’s so fluid and easy to change around means that you don’t have any barriers to keep the momentum flowing.

As I mentioned with the word-based version, this is the kind of set that you can leave the kids to play with by themselves. You don’t have to guide them through it, as it’s very intuitive and it will keep them entertained for a good while without much extra assistance. If that’s a plus for you, it’s well worth considering.

These sets are very giftable so if you’re thinking about educational toys, this is exactly the sort of set you should be considering.

Magicube Math Building is available to buy from Amazon.